Tech

It is WhatsApp, and not the metaverse, that will save Meta

If this were a movie, Goal would be a family with problems, the metaverse the pampered, muscular and “winner” son and WhatsApp the stepdaughter who nobody pays attention to but who ultimately, and when they are about to lose everything, surprises their own and strangers by resolving the situation masterfully, while the prodigal son with a long chin suddenly reveals his more than obvious limitations and his inability to carry out more complex tasks than adding two plus two, helping himself with his hands. And Facebook? Well, he’s the eldest of the children, he’s already married, he makes his own life and you can’t count on him.

As you will remember, about a year ago Facebook (company) decided to change its name to Meta, symbolizing that the social network was no longer the epicenter of its business activity. The new focus would be, of course, the metaversethat virtual space inspired by the movies and novels of the last 20 or 30 years (and also a little by previous projects, such as Second Life), a space for play, work, social interaction, recreation… in short, a proposal that It sounds very interesting on paper, but its implementation is terribly more complex than Meta would like.

A year later the numbers do not accompany. The company has made a huge economic investment that has not served to attract users and, on the contrary, has had a disastrous effect on their accounts, forcing the company to assume layoffs and the closure of some divisions. And with even worse forecasts for the coming years, Meta sees its income statement bleed, the confidence of its investors falling, and it needs to react in some way. And yes, when I say react, I mean generate income that stops the bleeding. And what can WhatsApp do about it?

It is WhatsApp, and not the metaverse, that will save Meta

Mark Zuckerberg may have made a big mistake with his bet on the metaverse, but in a meeting with all employees, reported by Reuters Agency, he has stated that the company’s greatest monetization potential is in WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. A point on which it is important to remember that both instant messaging services are among the three most used in the world (along with WeChat) and, as the CEO of the company indicated, the monetization potential of both services has hardly been exploited. yet.

Good news for the company and shareholders, perhaps not so much for users. And it is that the advertising inserts are a sword of Damocles that has hung over WhatsApp for quite some time. And now, with the Meta accounts in their current state, it makes sense to expect plans in this regard to be sped up substantially. And it is that the option to start monetizing the around 2,000 million accounts of the service through advertising seems, more than a life preserver, a 100-foot yacht to get away from the shipwreck.

On the other hand, WhatsApp has also been taking steps for some time to, without losing its essence as an instant messaging service, also become a buying-selling platform, something that can also be very profitable and that, unlike the purely advertising model, can add value to users. In this regard, WhatsApp has launched this week its business directory service (in the style of the traditional Yellow Pages) in Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico and the United Kingdom.

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